Why Is Veritone Stock Tanking Friday?

Veritone, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERI) shares traded lower in Friday’s premarket session after the company issued mixed financial updates alongside its fiscal 2026 outlook. Preliminary Earnings Snapshot The company cut its fourth-quarter revenue guidance to a range of $18.1 million to $30.0 million, down from its prior forecast of $33.4 million to $39.4 million and below the consensus estimate of $34.286 million. Veritone also expects a fourth-quarter EPS loss of 41 cents to 28 cents, wider than the street view of 18 cents. For fiscal 2025, Veritone projected an EPS loss of $1.75 to $1.56, compared with analyst estimates of $1.50. The company also lowered its fiscal 2025 revenue outlook to $93.7 million to $105.6 million, down from its earlier guidance of $109 million to $115 million and below the $109.485 million consensus estimate. Despite the weaker outlook, Veritone said its Veritone Data Refinery exited fiscal 2025 with more than $50 million in new bookings during the fourth quarter, supported by a near-term pipeline as of December 31. The company ended the year with $27.4 million in cash and cash equivalents and $45.6 million in convertible debt. AI Partnership And FY26 Outlook Separately, Veritone announced a multi-year strategic partnership with Oracle Corp. (NYSE:ORCL) to migrate its AI solutions to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The collaboration aims to improve scalability, security and performance for enterprise AI deployments. “Through this partnership with Oracle, we are strengthening our leadership in managing unstructured data and complex, multi-model AI workflows,” said Ryan Steelberg, CEO of Veritone. Looking ahead, Veritone issued fiscal 2026 revenue guidance of $130 million to $145 million, with the midpoint above the $130.4 million consensus estimate. Steelberg said, “We believe that our improved balance sheet, expanding VDR pipeline, and continued momentum in the public sector positions us to capture significant opportunities across the AI and data economy.” “As we look ahead to 2026, our focus remains on growing our platform, deepening customer adoption, and delivering results through the scaled tokenization of unstructured data.” VERI Price Action: Veritone shares were down 8.05% at $2.40 during premarket trading on Friday, according to Benzinga Pro data. Photo by TIMS13 via Shutterstock